California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sent controversial U.S. Border Patrol official Greg Bovino a searing farewell message following the news that he will retire from the agency at the end of this month.

“Good riddance. You ruined lives. You spread fear. And you spewed hate,” Newsom wrote in X. “If you are remembered, it will be like the smallest man who ever lived.”

The account from the governor’s press office also attempted to jab the agent with an illustration of the Statue of Liberty leaning down to tell a screaming Bovine, “You’re fired,” a phrase that lives in infamy from President Donald Trump’s career on “The Apprentice.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, here at the 2026 SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, on March 15, criticized outgoing Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino in a post on Monday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, here at the 2026 SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, on March 15, criticized outgoing Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino in a post on Monday.

Julia Beverly via Getty Images

Bovino became the face of the Trump administration’s second national deportation crackdown, overseeing aggressive operations that sparked mass protests in Los Angeles last summer.

Scrutiny on Bovino only intensified after “Operation Midway Blitz,” when hundreds of immigration agents and National Guard troops were deployed in and around Chicago.

Bovino, here in January, became the face of President Donald Trump's national crackdown on deportations as leader of operations in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis.
Bovino, here in January, became the face of President Donald Trump’s national crackdown on deportations as leader of operations in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis.

Star Tribune via Getty Images via Getty Images

He was removed from his position as “commanding general” of the Border Patrol in January after federal agents killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, inflaming the already fierce reaction to Trump’s immigration crackdown locally and across the country.

Bovino, who has been with the Border Patrol since 1996, told Breitbart Texas that working with the agency and its officers was “the greatest honor of my entire life.”